Roads not taken
by Madhumalati
Summary: Oneshots that take key points in the anime in different directions. Second: What if he hadn't picked up Tetsusaiga? Third: What if he had let the girl die?
1. The sealing arrow

_**Roads not taken**___

Each chapter will be the story of one thing that never happened and the consequences. This is probably darker than anything I've ever written to date, and I'd really like feedback! Inspired by a Saiyuki fic of the same name – go check it out if you're into Saiyuki, it is truly worth it.

_**Kikyou**_

She dragged herself up painfully from the grass he had knocked her down upon, and Kikyou reflected bitterly that for someone who had sworn never to love – who had been cursed to love in vain and be betrayed – it had certainly been an easy task. Too easy, to expect white and red at the corner of her vision; too easy to wait for Inuyasha to crouch by her in his oddly doglike position and tilt his head at her curiously; too easy, even, to become fond of his harsh, bumbling affection and to need the intensity of emotion in his golden eyes. Too easy to forget what she should always have remembered – that she was not destined for joy.

He had saved her life so many times, and she had saved his as well. She had believed that to be a bond between them, of mutual debt and gratitude. And she had seen – or had it been a lie? Surely it was, or why would he do this? – the slow, slow lowering of his carefully constructed defences, his vulnerability giving her the courage to reveal her own. He had become gentle, even tender, when there was no one else around them. And in battle, he had protected her so fiercely and taken such pride in her power, the pride of a partner, a friend. A lover.

All a lie. She must remember that. Must hold on to that source of sustenance, because if she didn't keep the fire burning the pain would begin again, and if it did she would never be able to walk that infinitesimal, infinite distance to the village where she was sure he would be.

Well, she was thoroughly reminded of it now, in the amazingly painful wound that her – was he her lover? Her love? – had inflicted on her. It bled quickly, and splashed across the green, green grass as redly as the lip stain that he had given her – given her, and then broken as casually as he had broken her heart.

She didn't have much time left, she knew that. but before she gave in to the peace that was calling her name, she had two things left to finish.

The first was the Shikon no Tama. The second, Inuyasha.

She followed him to the tree, fuelled by a dangerous mixture of adrenaline, desperation and righteous fury. He snarled her name, but she couldn't see the anger, the contempt in his eyes that she had heard in his voice minutes ago. _I trusted you_, she lamented, _I believed in you. Damn you, Inuyasha, I loved you!_

His eyes narrowed at her, filled with some emotion that she couldn't understand. Why would _he_ look betrayed? What cause had he to feel sorrow?

She drew the arrow, the motions coming as quickly, as naturally, as the (now painful) rise and fall of her breathing. Blue for a barrier, white for sealing, rose for purification, red for cutting……she had recited the list over and over again in her childhood until she knew it perfectly, the colour in her mind dictating the nature of her arrow.

The sealing arrow was the one that came to her first – to bind him into eternal slumber instead of destroying him. It was too much, the thought of killing a man she loved, no matter what he had done to her. But she saw the glowing pink jewel in his clawed hands – the jewel that had become the bane of her existence – and her anger resurfaced. White flashed through her mind again, briefly, but the arrow that sped from her bow was deep pink, brighter and more furious than any of its kind. He saw it coming, and his eyes half-closed in expectation as he mouthed her name one last time. Then the arrow caught him on the heart – perfect aim, she had always had perfect aim – and he was trapped in a flare of power.

He didn't scream, but the expression on his face would haunt her through time, five hundred years into the future in the restless nightmares of a Tokyo schoolgirl who went through life with a haunting sense of loss, bone-deep regret and memories of golden eyes that no longer watched her from the trees, no matter how many times she circled the forest on the edge of her family's property, waiting for something that never happened. She was otherwise completely ordinary, until she vanished unexpectedly on her fifteenth birthday and they found her dead body lying on the base of the family's well three days later. Murdered by a clawed animal, the coroner's report said, although there were no animals in Japan large enough to do that. The case was closed for lack of evidence.

Kikyou didn't know all that, of course. All she was aware of was pain from her shoulder and side, and the rapid disintegration of Inuyasha before her, the accursed jewel slipping from his hands oh so slowly, his palm reaching wonderingly out to her as his eyes turned strangely quiet, introspective, almost serene. His face smoothed, the angry snarl vanishing as he looked into her eyes, and as his soul dissolved he just looked at her. There was no intense emotion there; it was a simple gaze, as if he was memorising her features, as if he was giving her something, as if he……

As if he still loved her.

As if he always had.

She half reached out in return, but as her own teacher had once said, an arrow let loose could not be brought back, and though she had been speaking metaphorically it was exactly right for this situation, and he died.

The anger dead, the adrenaline drained, the pain in Kikyou's shoulder overwhelmed her, and she staggered, her eyes still fixed on the place where Inuyasha had been, and where the solid brown bark of the Goshinboku was all she could see now. Her whispered instructions to Kaede on the disposal of the Shikon no Tama were her last words, but as she died, all she could think of was……

The peace in his eyes.

Why?


	2. The warded fang

_**Inuyasha**_

He pulled himself upright and snarled with fury as Ryukotsusei jeered at him. Red eyes with sky-blue pupils narrowed over two jagged purple claw-like lines on his cheeks, and long fangs grinned with feral joy as he ran towards the giant snake a hundred times his size. He heard the girl scream his name – a name he no longer acknowledged, and did not pause, disregarding the rusty old sword lying point-down in the ground to his side. It pulsed and called, a cool voice of reason in the turmoil of his mind – but he was fury, he was savage thrill, he was bloodlust and frenzy, and he did not even glance at it as he attacked. The snake, unprepared for his ferocity, fell within minutes, torn to pieces under unnaturally long, sharp claws and ripping fangs. He stood atop the corpse of the snake and howled his triumph to the heavens.

Some part of him – golden eyes and gentle hands – called out to him, telling him that by succeeding, he had failed, and had he failed, he would have succeeded. _Inuyasha,_ he snarled his name, silencing him momentarily. The fang still called out to him, but he could not hear. The demon – that was all he was, not Inuyasha, not that weakling half-breed who needed to hide behind a fang to send blood spraying and end life.

The girl screamed again, and the demon felt a brief irritation. Why did she keep calling that name?

Others joined in, calling, and the demon snarled in vicious frenzy as the chorus of that name he hated _inuyashainuyashainuyasha _filled his ears. He leaped into the air, and with a few quick strokes ensured silence. Seven dead, including that old fool and his transport. The last one, the girl. His claw lifted to end her life.

She stared at him, fear in her eyes, and betrayal, but also hope, and pity, and too much love. He hesitated, caught by that expression, and then he turned and ran from it, ran with a speed greater than he had used against the snake. Her final cry rang in his ears – his too-sharp ears – as he ran from the girl.

He ran for months, or maybe it was years. He kept no count, and saw no calendars. His primitive mind had no need for the first and no understanding of the second. Rain and snow and sun, he relished them and hated them and ignored them like any animal. He sought shelter on the ground, disdaining the trees his inner-self had preferred – because he had preferred them, and he had been weak. He took no mate, and tolerated no companions. He killed what he saw, and ate what he killed, and cared not what it had been before its death. There was Meat, and there was Prey, and there was Need and there was Bloodlust. One sufficed to end the other.

Or it should have. The hated presence within his mind – the Inuyasha-creature – diminished as time went by, but his aching need and grief left a scar within the demon's mind; on the rare occasions when he needed to sleep he was troubled by brief, fever-bright dreams of that girl he had spared. The only one he had ever spared. His other self was tormented by the things the demon did, and the demon took pleasure in doing them, if only to ensure that the pain continued.

Sometimes, he sensed a presence near him, most like him but not quite. Dog demon, hunting. He avoided that presence cleverly, using every trick he had to mask his scent and his energy. It was stronger than he, even in this form, and if they fought – and they would fight to the death – then he would die, and he was sure of it.

He also felt another presence, one that made his other self bare his fangs and made his hackles raise. It did not please the demon, because he felt the same urge when that wretched spider-scent washed over his sensitive nose, and he disliked feeling anything that his other self felt. He felt the spider watching him occasionally, pleased with itself and viciously contemptuous, and tried to fight it, but it left before he could track it down. It fought the dog a while after the demon had come alive, and died by his strikes, and the power of two mikos. The dog barely survived, and the demon felt pleased, because the dog no longer attempted to follow him.

In the beginning, he could reason, after a fashion, but as time went by that diminished, until he could no longer understand that the grunting of humans and demons was, in fact, decipherable to the ear. He became a true animal, a white-haired, red-clad beast, the stuff of old wives' tales. And as his reason deserted him, so, too, did the reason he avoided the dog. And so it was that three years after his birth, the demon faced the dog in a grassy clearing on a bright, sunny day like the first time he had seen him.

The dog looked like him, the demon noted. White hair, and something in the features, although he was more refined than the demon. He snarled mindlessly at it, and golden eyes narrowed under magenta eyelids and the dog spat out an icy reply. He did not understand, but he caught that hated name, and it drowned out that inner instinct that warned him that to attack the dog would be to court certain death.

He charged.

A/N: So, if you liked it, review, dammit. I've never written anything remotely tragic before this. Thanks to anon, who reviewed the first chapter. 


	3. The orphan girl

_**Sesshoumaru:**_

'Do you think you can get away from me so easily, Naraku?' he roared, and he could feel the transformation beginning, his eyes turning blood-red and his jaw lengthening unnaturally, preparing to turn into a canine muzzle.

Naraku laughed, and played his last card. If Sesshoumaru followed him, fought him now, then Rin would die by his minion's hand. 'Choose, then,' Naraku said. 'My death or her life.'

For one long second, he hesitated. Rin was – she was – special. But this man had tricked him, betrayed him, dishonoured him. And killing him would bring Sesshoumaru even more power, and power was what he had always longed for, was it not? Power and dominion over all. He had said as much to his father once.

He had no one to protect.

He did not need to.

The transformation sped up. He could feel himself changing, and Inuyasha steadied himself for pitched battle. Naraku stopped laughing, surprised that he hadn't gone charging obediently after Rin like the spider had expected him to. 'What……' he began, but he never finished the sentence as the huge white dog and his tiny half-brother tore into him, mutual hatred resulting in a temporary truce.

The battle did not last long. Already weakened by Inuyasha's first blow, Naraku was unable to defend himself; his barrier no longer worked. Sesshoumaru ripped into him with carefully controlled ferocity, and Inuyasha let out a scream of anger as he swung Tetsusaiga through his various appendages. Even the other humans who followed him around helped, the miko firing arrows and the slayer using her boomerang to keep Naraku's tentacles off Inuyasha's back. Naraku's dying scream was the sweetest sound Sesshoumaru had ever heard, and he thrilled in it as he returned to his humanoid form.

It was only then that he remembered, once the fury of battle had receded.

Rin.

He turned into his energy form and sped away, knowing already that it was too late.

Sure enough, as he reached there, there was a boy standing over her corpse with a bloody sickle-and-chain, weeping with what looked like genuine remorse. He looked stunned, as if he had faced one too many revelations in too short a time; wide, expressive brown eyes filled with grief. Sesshoumaru paid little attention to him, knocking him aside with a casual fling of his arm. The boy landed in a heap, unconscious. He went over to Rin and gathered her up. One foot ahead of the other, until he made her a grave and buried her with as much care as if she had been his own. And then, as always, he walked away.

As the days passed, a strange turmoil spread through the frozen organ that had, until now, merely circulated his blood. Had he, after all, done the right thing? He had won, he had proved himself and destroyed his enemies. The loss of a mere human should mean nothing to him.

But it did. Oh, it did.

It took him weeks to realise that. He wandered as aimlessly as he had since the death of his father and the gradual decline of his court, and wondered why nothing brought him the strange tranquillity he had experienced in the few months that the little girl had travelled with him. He grew short-tempered and killed people for looking at him wrong, but it didn't really help.

Finally, in desperation, he sought retribution as a possible answer. The boy who had killed her was living with his sister in the old exterminator village, and though both were formidable fighters by human standards they barely lasted seconds against him.

Their deaths brought Sesshoumaru no peace. Rin still haunted him, her smile, her artless chatter, her laughter and joy filled his every thought. He dismissed Jaken, made him return to his long-forgotten tribe, and travelled on alone, moving from one end of the country to another with fanatic speed, one foot ahead of the other.

_Rin. Rin. Rin. _

_I let you die. _

_I killed your killer – both of them._

_I must be free of you. _

The thoughts twisted through his mind in a ceaseless litany, over and over again in the rhythm of his steps.

Who was she, really, he wondered. She was nothing to him. He had simply tested Tenseiga on her, and then let her follow him around for want of any better way to dispose of her – simply killing her again had seemed a waste of his effort, and Sesshoumaru despised wasted effort. She had followed him around because he had saved her. He had no need to care for a human. Had never cared for one, in fact, and never would, because he was the Inu no Taisho and he needed no one to protect.

And he walked on. One foot ahead of the other.

He missed her badly. There was only silence surrounding him now, and his solitude, that he had so valued before _she_ had pushed her way into his life and bought his loyalty with a smile and a clumsy offering of fish and mushrooms.

His _loyalty_? he paused on that thought. But he did feel loyalty towards her. He had protected her, he had saved her, he had avenged her.

But Sesshoumaru never followed that thought to its end, because that way lay a realisation he was not prepared to have. So he kept moving, let physical motion drown out his mind and his heart, his memories of the one he had failed. One foot ahead of the other.

_Rin._

They sought him out then. The monk, mourning the loss of his love; the miko, seeking vengeance for her friend; the half-brother who had finally had enough. He readied himself for battle, confident that he could finish them, and he was correct in his confidence, because Tenseiga could protect him against the Wind Scar and the other two were powerless against him.

And sometime during the battle, he realised that thing he had kept himself from thinking of for so many months. It was his fault. He could have saved Rin, he knew it. If he had only put aside his power lust, his pride, for a second, he could have been there in time to keep her from dying. If he had only thought for a second longer, he would have chosen her life over Naraku's death. If he had only kept anger from taking over his thoughts for that one second. He had failed in his discipline. For years, decades, he had trained himself to be calm, be collected, and most of all, be true to himself and under no illusions.

But he had perpetrated the greatest illusion of all. At that one moment, he had failed, he had placed his pride above his discipline, and he had lost the one thing in his cold, grey world that actually loved him with no ulterior motives……that loved him. At all. Not his parents, not his family, and he had never had any friends. And that little girl had wormed her way into his heart, become child and family and solace and warmth without his realising it – without his even being willing to accept it, let alone return even a fraction of the love she had showered him in.

And he had failed her. He had let her die.

No. He had killed her. As surely as if his own hands had held the blade.

Sesshoumaru was unaware of the moment when his sword fell from his hands, unaware that he had unconsciously rejected Tenseiga's protective warding. He didn't see the flash of light and the curling wind around Tetsusaiga, the fang he had so craved. He didn't even feel the wind blades slicing through his body. _Rin_, he thought one last time, and fell.

A/N: for those who don't know, it diverges from the point where Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru wind up attacking Naraku together after the Akai Tetsusaiga arc, and Rin gets kidnapped and nearly killed by Kohaku. I just realised that I didn't post this, how stupid of me!


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